


light becomes what it touches

by awkwardspiritanimals



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Adoption, Bedsharing, F/M, Marriage of Convenience, Pining, enough pining for an entire forest, marriage pact, normally I would not tag pining but in this fic?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:55:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26455249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awkwardspiritanimals/pseuds/awkwardspiritanimals
Summary: Rita sighs."How exactly do two otherwise competent and responsible adults end up with a marriage, an apartment, and two children without ever actually talking about their feelings?"Rafael leans forward until his forehead rests against the coffee table."I think it was supposed to be a joke."She sighs again. "This is the most inconvenient marriage of convenience in the history of the institution."
Relationships: Lucia Barba & Rafael Barba, Noah Porter Benson & Olivia Benson, Olivia Benson & Amanda Rollins, Olivia Benson & Calvin Arliss, Olivia Benson & Odafin "Fin" Tutuola, Rafael Barba & Calvin Arliss, Rafael Barba & Catalina Diaz, Rafael Barba & Noah Porter Benson, Rafael Barba & Olivia Benson, Rafael Barba & Rita Calhoun, Rafael Barba/Olivia Benson
Comments: 19
Kudos: 116
Collections: Happy birthday Michelle!





	1. prologue (marriage)

**Author's Note:**

> Think of all the different versions of this you guys could have gotten if you had peer pressured literally anyone else into writing it, and instead you're getting this one.
> 
> Near the beginning of this, Liv thinks in passing about her 'close call with William Lewis.' This isn't me downplaying what happened in canon-- which I would never do-- but rather changing what happened in order to make the story work on the timeline I wanted to write for it (and also because literally any excuse to reduce Liv's overall lifetime trauma is an excuse I will take). There was no way to do that if I stuck to canon without the entire fic mostly being about Liv working through her trauma by doing something majorly impulsive. It's not that there might not be an interesting fic in that idea, but I don't think I would be particularly good at writing it nor was it what I wanted this fic to be. So here, Lewis got as far as attempting to kidnap Liv but, for whatever reason you would personally like to imagine, was not successful and, once again for whatever reason you would like to imagine, is of no future threat to her or anyone else. Obviously she is still dealing with the lesser trauma of that and it does have an effect on her decision, which she acknowledges throughout the fic, but it's not the central piece of the fic I feel it would have needed to be if I would have stuck directly with canon.

It was a joke, really.

Not the marriage itself. Their marriage was… a lot of things, but it wasn’t a joke.

But the inciting event, that had been a joke, fueled by too much scotch and too little sleep, only a week removed from everything with Alex Muñoz. Or not a joke, really, but an off-handed comment meant to make him smile.

And it had worked, which was part of the problem, in the end.

\--------------

She knows Rafael is still here, sitting on the couch in his office with her and drinking, because as long as he was ostensibly at work he had an excuse not to answer any calls from his mother or reporters or anyone from his old neighborhood, the latter of which Olivia is fairly certain had been given his number by Yelina Muñoz in an attempt at revenge. Olivia herself is still here because she’s worried about him-- she’d barely been able to look at him all week without hearing _she never said that about me_ \-- and because, after the too close call with William Lewis and even with a new apartment, there are some nights where the thought of being alone at home makes her feel genuinely sick.

Besides, it’s nice to sit here with him, close enough that their thighs and shoulders are touching. They’d discussed their current case for a while, but about fifteen minutes ago they’d lapsed into a silence that neither of them has bothered to break. There are things she wants to ask him about, and that she thinks would be good for him to talk about, but she’s pretty sure they’re at the point in their friendship where he’ll talk to her if she’s patient and let’s him bring it up but will shut down entirely if she tries to jump start the conversation herself. So she’s waiting him out, occupying herself with trying to figure out how much of the warm buzzing under her skin is due to the scotch and how much is due to Rafael’s proximity.

He sighs, tilting his head back against the couch, and she’s just drunk enough to let her gaze linger on the line of his throat.

“She asked me to marry her once. Yelina,” he says, and she remembers _So was Yelina. She thinks this was… personal._ “She said that instead of going to Harvard, I should marry her. That we could both go to Fordham, that we could get an apartment and start a family and… and be happy.”

Her first thought is _That doesn’t sound like asking_ but instead she says, “Did you want to marry her?”

“At eighteen, I had never wanted anything in my life as badly as I wanted to go to Harvard. I couldn’t even imagine I’d ever want anything more than that.”

“You didn’t think about asking her to go to Boston with you?”

His head is still tipped back against the couch, his eyes closed. “Yelina loves the Bronx. Just like Alex does.” He turns to look at her, and his eyes look the same as they had the other day at Forlini’s, like he’s only holding himself together because he doesn’t know what else to do. “I didn’t want her to be the one who had to choose.”

She can picture him at eighteen, breaking his own heart so that someone he loved didn’t have to, and she wants to say _I’m sorry that happened,_ she wants to say _I’m sorry any of this happened_ , wants to say _they’re acting like this is your fault and some part of you thinks that too and I don’t know how to fix that._ She wants to reach out and cup his cheek in her hand, to anchor him here in this moment with her instead of stumbling any further down memory lane.

Olivia tilts her head against the couch so that they’re face to face, and opens her mouth with no real idea of exactly what she’s going to say.

“I’d marry you.”

There’s a few seconds of pure panic, rising up in her throat like bile as she tries to figure out what someone is supposed to do at work the next day when they’ve just- well, not exactly proposed, but certainly said something proposal adjacent. And then Rafael laughs, a soft, warm sound, and smiles, something which she hasn’t seen from him in awhile, since even before all this.

“It might get my mother to finally stop asking if I’m ever planning on getting around to it.”

“Is she at least subtle about it?”

He shakes his head, finally lifting it off the back of the couch. “Subtle and Lucia Barba have never met.” Leaning forward, he sets his glass on the floor next to his feet. “There are tax benefits, you know.”

“For being subtle?”

“For being married.” Rafael glances at her quickly and then away again, shy in a way she’s _never_ seen from him. “For filing jointly, I mean. Plus there’s the… all the bullshit respectability standards that go along with it.”

“Right.” She still has her head tilted back against the couch, and when he matches her this time, she has to clench her hands to fight the urge to touch him. There’s a voice at the back of her head whispering that she shouldn’t feel this comfortable here, not because Rafael is any threat at all but because he’s a coworker and they’re in his office. Another is pointing out that they really are sitting very close together and it wouldn’t really be all that much work to-

“It’d be nice, having someone to come home to. Sharing a space with someone.”

Even just saying it makes her feel more settled, and she can’t help imagining it, sharing a drink with him on her couch, _at home_ , instead of here in his office where even this late they might be interrupted at any moment.

“Yeah,” he says, crooked smile back in place, “We could-” he starts, and then sits up suddenly, shaking his head as if trying to wake himself up. “Sorry. That was… a stupid thought.”

“I’ve had two and a half glasses of scotch, nothing is stupid right now,” she replies, and Rafael looks at her over his shoulder, leaning forward on his knees. His smile is smaller now, but still there, and his eyes are bright.

“I just had a thought that we could do that thing people do where they decide that if neither of them are married by some predetermined date, they’ll get married.”

“People do that?” she asks, and he seems to consider it for several seconds before shrugging.

“Maybe they only really do it in movies or books. But I’m saying that we could, I don’t know, decide that if neither of us were married by your fiftieth birthday, we would get married.” Rafael shrugs again, leaning forward to pick up his drink. “Like I said, it was a stupid thought.”

Olivia considers this, and she considers the bright red flush along the tops of his ears and the line of his shoulders where his shirt is stretched across them as he curls into himself, and she considers how comfortable she feels here with him, and she considers the fact that the spare bedroom in her apartment always feels too empty.

“Why wait?”

He drops the glass he’d just picked up, and only the heavy bottom keeps it from tipping over as he looks over his shoulder at her with wide eyes.

“What?”

“If we trust each other enough to say that we’ll get married in a few years if we’re both single, and if we both like the idea of being married to each other enough to say that, then why are we waiting?” She sits up so that she can look him in the eye.

“That’s… we can’t get married, Liv!”

“Why not? It was your idea.”

“You’re the one who said you would marry me first!” he says, reaching down for his drink again and throwing it back.

“So we agree then.”

Rafael gestures at his empty glass. “We’re drunk.”

“We’re tipsy,” Olivia rebutts, rolling her eyes, “If that’s your only problem, we can talk about it again tomorrow. But like I said, if we both want to get married, for all the reasons we said, and we agree to do it, then why would we bother waiting? Won’t we just look back and think that was wasted time?”

“What if you meet someone?” he asks, and if she were just slightly more drunk, she’d ask him why he specified her instead of including both of them. But she’s not, so she just shrugs.

“What if I don’t? Plus, I’ve already met you. So, what do you say?” she asks, swaying into him to press her shoulder against his, “Want to get married, Barba?”

Rafael looks both stunned and pleased, and Olivia feels something warm and fond careen through her chest at the smile on his face.

“Well, I guess it was my idea.”

\-------------

There are days that she has to remind herself that she hadn’t been in love with him then.

She’d liked him, much more than she ever could have predicted when they first met. He was good at his job and he knew it, but he was also willing to bend and to fight and occasionally to leap, as long as she was willing to put in the work beside him to prove that he should. There was no denying the way they understood each other, the way they picked up entire sentences from the way the other tilted their head or raised their eyebrows, the connection they’d had from the beginning, even when she was spending a lot of her time trying not to roll her eyes at him.

And yes, she absolutely wanted to sleep with him, definitely once, probably a few times, maybe as a regular thing if it wouldn’t have complicated everything else in her life. But lust hadn’t really factored into much of anything that night, not once they’d started talking about marriage.

All that week and especially that night, she’d wanted somehow to protect him from something that had already happened, all too familiar herself with people dropping back into her life only to reveal that they weren’t who she thought they were. Short of that, she’d wanted to assure him that as off-kilter as he felt, there were people in his life he could depend on and that she was one of them.

Admittedly, she had probably gone a little extreme in her execution, but no one could argue that it hadn’t been convincing.

The thing she hadn’t considered fully, in the moment or in the two weeks between then and when they’d gotten married, was what it would be like to have Rafael be all the things he already was and to also be the person who stumbled into her kitchen in the morning to make coffee, barefoot and bleary-eyed, or the one she sometimes came home to find half asleep on the couch because he’d wanted to wait up for her before going to bed, even though they slept in separate rooms.

Maybe in a different life, one where she hadn’t stayed that evening or they hadn’t had quite as much to drink or a different story about Yelina had been the first one to come to Rafael’s mind, nothing about her feelings would have ever really changed. Or if they had, she might have been able to take all the things that would make their relationship more complicated and shut it away in a box, maybe for good or maybe just until they wouldn’t complicate things.

But now, metaphorically or literally, there’s nowhere to put the box. Rafael was everywhere, at work and at home; her shower ended up smelling like him most mornings, a couple of his t-shirts had gotten mixed in with her laundry one time and he’d never asked for them back, and sometimes, when they were in the middle of a tricky case and she was having trouble sleeping, he’d sit next to her on her bed and read from whatever book he was in the middle of.

Being married to him is nice in all the ways she’d expected it to be, and a hundred other ways too, both big and small. There are times when she thinks she should just tell him, but she clams up every time when she thinks about all there is for her to lose now. They’d talked carefully about everything leading up to the wedding-- disclosure forms and bank accounts and leases--, but very little at all about the potential end of things. Rafael had gone quiet and pale every time either of them had brought it up, and she hadn’t been much better, so aside from a joke that neither of them had really laughed at about how a divorce would be as easy as one of them finding a new apartment and a fervent agreement to talk if either of them thought they might want to end things for any reason, they hadn’t really discussed their possible separation.

She was almost able to laugh about it, the fact that it felt like it might be easier to ask him for a divorce than to talk about her feelings, but they’d only talked about one of those options, if only a little. There was a path towards getting out, much as just the thought made her stomach turn, but no easy move toward going deeper in, which is what she really wanted. And it was complicated enough when it was just the two of them, nevermind…

It wasn’t that Olivia thought that there wouldn’t ever be any complications in their marriage just because it was… unconventional, but they’d at least face anything that happened together. They can only do that if she talks to him, and she knows this, but she also knows that trying to talk to him about everything all at once would be overwhelming.

And, well, she knows what her priorities are. Judge Linden needs an answer, and her own feelings have waited this long. They can certainly wait until other things are settled, one way or the other, no matter what the outcome is.

If she tells herself all of that enough-- that she’s fine as long as everything is settled, no matter which way it ends up going, that she’s fine keeping her feelings to herself--, she might even start to believe it.

\--------------

It had been a small wedding, although not as small as they’d originally thought it would be.

There’d been a massive amount of paperwork to complete between them, and they’d wanted to keep the ceremony itself as simple as possible, especially considering the circumstances. A trip to the city courthouse and a witness pulled out of the hallway would do, they figured. As Olivia said, it was the marriage that mattered, not the wedding.

And then he’d gone to Sunday brunch with his mother and spent nearly the entirety of the meal feeling sick to his stomach about keeping something like this from her. Olivia had picked up on his uneasiness within thirty seconds of walking into his office the next day, and he’d explained that he was fairly certain that if he didn’t at least invite his mother and grandmother, they might talk to him again someday, but it probably wouldn’t ever be about anything except for the fact that he’d gotten married without them. She’d laughed, told him that of course he could invite them and actually, he could invite anyone else he wanted, since she admitted that she’d been thinking that it would probably be easier to just invite the squad than trying to explain things to them after the fact.

About three hours after that, Rita had burst into his office, demanding to know why she’d heard that he was getting married through the grapevine instead of from him and how exactly he had ended up _engaged_ in the first place. He’d opened his mouth to invite her to the wedding, and instead the whole story had come pouring out, because it was Rita and they’d been friends for decades and the only other person in the world that he might tell about it was the person he was doing it with. Rita had laughed at him a little bit, because of course she had, but then she’d sat next to him on the couch and asked him sincerely if this was what he really wanted.

“You think I’d get married if it wasn’t what I wanted?”

“If you think it would make Olivia Benson happy? I absolutely think you would.”

“That’s not why I’m doing this.” She’d given him a look, and he’d corrected himself. “It’s not the only reason I’m doing this. I want this too. We both do.”

“That at least I don’t doubt. But, Barba, don’t make yourself miserable with half measures because you don’t think there’s any chance of the real thing.”

“This is the real thing.” She’d given him another look. “It’s Liv and I, and we decided to do this together. That makes it the real thing. It might not be a fairy tale, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t real.”

“Alright,” she said with a sigh, and then she’d smiled, “You know I don’t care that it’s a courthouse wedding on a Thursday afternoon, I’m still going to tell everyone forever that I was your best woman.”

At the wedding itself, he’d spent most of his time concentrating on taking deep breaths and not staring too openly at Olivia in the green dress she’d chosen for the occasion. When the judge had pronounced them married and told Rafael he could kiss the bride, he’d caught her jaw in his hands, angling his palm so that it blocked their mouths from view and pressed his lips just to the corner of hers. Olivia was smiling at him when he pulled back, eyes shining, and for one long, bright moment, everything was absolutely perfect.

They both had the next day off, on orders from McCoy and Cragen despite their protests that they weren’t interested in any sort of honeymoon, and they’d spent the whole day on Olivia’s- on their couch, watching movies and eating takeout and ice cream straight out of the container. At some point in the evening, they’d both drifted off, and Rafael had woken up later that evening to find the room dark except for the dim light from the television and Olivia’s legs tangled with his where they’d both slid down a bit on the couch in their sleep.

His chest had ached with so much warmth and longing and fear that after he’d untangled himself he’d had to sit for several minutes with the heels of his palms pressed against his eyes to compose himself before he reached over to gently wake her up. He couldn’t help matching her when she smiled softly at him.

“Hey. We fell asleep?”

“Yeah. It’s late, you should go to bed.”

“Hmm,” she said, stretching, and he’d dropped his gaze to the floor, “I can’t remember the last time I was comfortable enough to just drop off like that. I like being married to you so far, Barba.”

“That’s just the honeymoon phase talking,” he responded, to cover his racing heart, and she laughed.

“Sorry you didn’t get a better honeymoon.”

Unable to help himself, he had leaned forward and pressed his lips against the same spot on her cheek he’d kissed the day before.

“I’m perfectly happy with the honeymoon I got.” He kept his eyes down as he pulled back. “I’m going to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Good night, Rafa.”

“Night, Liv.”

\------------

Rafael tries not to think about those two days too much. In part it’s because he doesn’t want to wear them out, doesn’t want to distort them with remembering, but it’s mostly because thinking about it at all leaves him feeling dangerously vulnerable. However dedicated he might be to keeping his feelings to himself, it was difficult enough to actually do it when he spends most of many days around Olivia, at work and then at home, without thinking about those two days.

It’s not that being married to Olivia is hard; most of the time it’s startlingly easy, even more so than he’d thought it would be. But there are already enough moments where it feels like all his walls are going to crash down on top of everything-- when she gets called in early and wakes up to find that she’d started the coffee brewing for him before she’d left, when she stays up late with him while he’s preparing for court the next day, even though her work is done and no matter how many times he tells her she can go to bed, a hundred other things big and small-- without him dwelling on the past.

Even six months later, he still sometimes finds himself in shock about the situation he finds himself in. After all, it was one thing to propose some sort of marriage pact, a little drunk and mostly joking, with a deadline years in the future and another entirely to have Olivia say that waiting years to get married would just be wasting time and they should get on with it. He’d promised himself before the wedding that he wouldn’t spend every second just dreading the day that she found someone else, and that had been easier than he’d anticipated for the most part, if only because Olivia, at least for the time being, doesn’t seem all that interested in finding anyone else. She will, someday, he’s certain, if only because he can’t imagine someone knowing Olivia Benson and loving her and not wanting to give her everything she wanted, but until then…

Until then, Rafael had meant it when he’d told Rita that their marriage was real. Just because Olivia didn’t feel the same way that he did and just because they slept in separate bedrooms and just because it would inevitably end someday didn’t make it any lesser, at least not for him. He just wants Olivia in his life, as much of her time as she is willing to give him, and they’ll figure out everything else as it comes, whatever it might be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday, Michelle! I hope you like all your presents, but you're only getting the first part of this one on your birthday instead of all of it because ~~I'm a slow writer~~ it's my revenge for you peer pressuring me once again. The rest should hopefully be posted over the next couple of months as I write it alongside my other current project, but I promise it includes lots of things you love, including bedsharing and also crying, and I don't know, other stuff? Do you have other specific stuff you want to see in the rest of the fic?
> 
> (I also might come back and rewrite bits of this first part as I figure out more about the rest of the fic, especially Rafa's bit, since I do an extraordinary amount of telling and very little showing through most of it because of the time crunch.)
> 
> Where's Brian Cassidy in this? Who knows! Probably off doing some sort of ridiculous undercover work or something. In writing this note I truly realized how little I understand about what he's ever doing on this show, and I just... didn't want to bother with any sort of explanation at all, so he's just not here.
> 
> Title of the fic comes from ['Monet Refuses the Operation'](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52577/monet-refuses-the-operation-56d231289e6db) by Lisel Mueller, not so much because the entire poem has a deep connection with the fic, but because I'm a big fan of that particular phrase and it fits with the found family vibe that builds throughout the rest of the fic.
> 
> Next chapter? A literal baby enters the chat.


	2. come build your home in me (Noah)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Judge Linden asked if I- if my husband and I would be interested in fostering him. And after a year, we could… we could adopt him.”
> 
> That’s me, he thinks stupidly, when she says my husband, she means me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Hey, Z, [x] happens really fast' or 'you didn't really fully explore [x].' I'm just trying to write a fic, I offered this to literally anyone else who wanted it, we're all just trying our best out here, there's so much fic left to write and I'm not forgiving any of you for that ever.
> 
> Chapter title from 'Small Hands' by Radical Face.

Something has been bothering Olivia the last few days, and Rafael hasn’t had any luck in figuring out what it is, although he has a theory.

Two days ago, she’d gotten home late, and when he’d asked her if they’d caught a case or if she’d just been held up with paperwork, she’d looked guilty and hadn’t really given an answer. That was when the acidic churning in his stomach had started, and he hasn’t had any luck shaking the feeling, not with Olivia continuing to be quiet and withdrawn around him both at work and at home.

Tonight though, when he’d settled into his usual spot on the couch to read for a while before going to bed, she had, instead of retreating to her room or even just taking the opposite corner like she usually would, sat down right next to him. When he’d carefully lifted his arm to stretch it across the back of the couch, she had tucked herself into his side without hesitation, and he’d felt a tiny spark of something, not hope that he’d been wrong so much as shallow relief that at least the wait for the hammer to drop might be over. They’ve been sitting together for almost half an hour, Olivia silent and Rafael turning pages in his book without actually reading much of it, when the quiet finally gets to be too much for him.

“Liv,” he says, tilting his face down against the top of her head, unable to escape the thought that this might be the last time he ever gets to be this close to her, “You can talk to me.”

_ Please. Please talk to me, even if you’re leaving me, because you’re my best friend. You’ll always be my best friend, no matter what. No matter who you fall in love with. _

She shifts, turning her face in against his shoulder, and it’s several long moments before she speaks.

“Do you remember the case from a few months ago, the little boy with diabetes whose adoptive mother tried to rehome him and pass it off as an abduction?”

“Hmm,” he says, reaching for the details in his memory, and something clicks into place. “One of the other kids you found with him, the baby, he turned out to be Ellie Porter’s son, right?”

When he had first noticed her mood, he’d assumed it had something to do with Porter’s death. After all, he knew better than anyone how hard she took losses like that, and he’d done his best to give her space while also making sure she knew she could talk to him if she needed to. These past few days had seemed different than anything he’s seen from her before, but something in his chest loosens just a little at the thought that maybe his first instinct had been correct and she hadn’t spent the last few days trying to figure out how to tell him she had fallen for someone else.

“Yeah. Noah,” she says, with a note in her voice that he can’t quite identify, “I’ve been going to his custodial hearings. I wanted to- I didn’t want him to just disappear into the system. And with Ellie’s death…”

“They officially declared him an orphan? There’s no other family?”

She shakes her head, finally scooting away from him a little bit. “No, and Ellie didn’t know who his father is. He’s now officially a ward of the state of New York, but Judge Linden...” She bites her lip, clearly unsure if she should continue, and he reaches out to take one of her hands in his without much thought. “Judge Linden asked if I- if my husband and I would be interested in fostering him. And after a year, we could… we could adopt him.”

_ That’s me,  _ he thinks stupidly,  _ when she says  _ my husband _ , she means me. _

“Oh,” he says, and even if his throat wasn’t so tight he wouldn’t be able to speak because he has no idea what to say. There are so many things this could mean, except of course it really just means the one thing.

A kid.  _ A baby _ , because if he’s remembering correctly, Noah Porter can’t be much more than six months old.

“Obviously this is a decision we need to make together, but they do need an answer from us. And Noah needs something more long-term than where he’s at now, whether that’s with us or…” She trails off, swallowing hard, and Rafael realizes she can’t even bring herself to mention another option.

“And this is something you want to do?” he asks, an unnecessary question but all he can manage to come up with at the moment. It feels like his brain is going too fast and too slow at the same time.

“It is.” She gives him an unconvincing smile. “I always thought when we had this conversation, it would be under less immediate circumstances.”

That’s a revelation. Not that she had considered it, that it was something she wanted-- everything he knows about Olivia Benson makes it easy to imagine her as a mother--, but that she had thought about it  _ with him _ . That she had considered that he could be someone’s father, and that she hadn’t found the idea laughable but instead something that warranted discussion.

He realizes his hands are shaking, and he pulls the one that is holding hers back into his lap.

“I’ve never-” he starts, but he’s not sure exactly how to explain, and Olivia’s face falls for a moment before she manages to settle it into an entirely neutral expression.

“Right. I’ll need to let Judge Linden know and-”

“No, Liv, I’m not- I’m not saying no. I’ve just never really thought about it, not when it was a real possibility like this. It never seemed worth it to make a decision one way or the other, especially as time went on and it seemed more and more unlikely,” he says, wincing at how poorly he’s expressing himself, “I just- I know they need an answer, but I just…”

“If you need time, Rafa, that’s fine. I understand. I would have told you before but…” She trails off, and he swallows against the acid rising up in his throat.

“Right. And, Liv, if I can’t-,” he says, failing to keep his voice from shaking, “If it means you can take him in, then we can- we can-” He can’t even bring himself to actually say the word, but his heart is pounding, and Olivia shakes her head.

“It wouldn’t really make things easier. I’ve… looked into it before, and I’m not exactly an ideal candidate. I can’t imagine it would be better if we were in the middle of…”

She apparently can’t bring herself to say it either.

“Oh.”

He hadn’t thought that there was one single thing that would ever make him regret the past six months, but if it meant that Olivia could adopt Noah, he’d give it all up in a second. If they hadn’t gotten married, then it might not have mattered that Olivia wasn’t an ideal candidate, not if Judge Linden herself thought she was a suitable foster parent; if they were married for real, they would have almost certainly had this conversation before now, and if they hadn’t, they probably wouldn’t be trailing off and stuttering their way through it the way they were now.

“Rafa, it’s okay. Take your time,” she says, even managing a small smile, “I’m going to head to bed. Night.”

“Night.”

He watches her retreat to her room, torn between the urge to let both of them have a little space and the urge to follow her. His book is still open but he doesn’t recognize anything on the page, and he doesn’t remember the last thing he actually read. After a few minutes of aimlessly flipping through it, he snaps it closed and heads to his own room, giving up on getting anything accomplished tonight.

As he pulls his pajamas out of his dresser, Rafael tries to keep his mind blank, to keep the swirling thoughts of Olivia and Noah and his father out of his head, or he won’t be able to get any sleep at all. And he needs to sleep, because tomorrow he needs to…

He drops to sit on the edge of his bed, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes.  _ His father _ . Olivia knows about all of that, which is probably why she had been hesitant to ask him about taking in Noah in the first place, and it’s not like he can blame her, not when he’s thinking along the same lines.

Suddenly unable to sit still, he pushes up to his feet, clenching and unclenching his hands as he paces his room. Maybe he should just go talk to her now, because it won’t actually be easier tomorrow morning or tomorrow night, and between talking with Olivia or sitting in here stewing in his thoughts, both of them are terrifying but at least one of them is productive.

He hesitates at Olivia’s door, fist raised to knock, when he hears soft sounds from within the room. The apartment is absolutely silent otherwise, and Rafael wonders if he should retreat and leave her alone.

“Liv?” he calls, leaning his forehead against the door, and his heart drops into his stomach when the sounds immediately stop, confirming his worst suspicions. Without thinking, he opens the door, stepping into the room as Olivia turns to look at him, swiping at the tears on her cheeks. She’s in her pajamas, but curled up on top of the covers on her bed, and his heart somehow manages to drop further at the thought that she’s been in here crying since she’d left him on the couch.

“I’m sorry,” she says, voice rough, and before he realizes what he’s doing, he crosses the room to the bed, one knee already lifted onto the mattress before his head catches up with his instincts and he freezes. Maybe she would rather he leave her alone again, since he’s the reason she was crying in the first place.

Olivia has no such qualms apparently, because she immediately turns over and reaches for him, and he climbs the rest of the way onto the bed as quickly as he can. Rafael wraps his arms around her and she presses her face against his chest, fingers twisting in the back of his shirt.

“I’m sorry,” she repeats, “I thought I was fine, but it just started and now I can’t stop. I swear I’m not- this isn’t some attempt to make you feel guilty.”

“Oh, honey, don’t apologize.” He drops his face down against her hair, shifting to tighten his hold on her. “I know you wouldn’t do that. I-”

Rafael stops, not sure what to say. He can’t tell her that he doesn’t feel guilty, because he  _ does _ and he won’t lie to her, but he can’t tell her that either, because there’s no way she wouldn’t assume that he had made a decision he hasn’t. He can’t even apologize, even though he is sorry that he can’t just give her the answer he aches to give her but that terrifies him all the way down into the core of himself. He can’t say any of that because it would only make her feel worse, and that’s the last thing he wants to do. Instead of speaking, he lets go of her only long enough to snap off the lamp and pull the blanket at the end of her bed up over them.

Olivia is still shaking when he settles back down next to her, pressing her forehead against his chest again and sliding one ankle between his, like she can’t get close enough to him.

He brushes a kiss over her hair. “Let’s sleep, honey. Tomorrow…” God, tomorrow might be better but it could also be so much worse than this, and he presses another kiss against her head, firmer this time. “Let’s just sleep.”

Rafael only means to stay until she falls asleep, but at some point, as he listens to her breathing even out and then slow, his eyes drift shut.

\--------------

The first thing she’s aware of when she wakes up is her headache, the overstuffed feeling at the front of her skull left over from crying last night.

The second thing she’s aware of is that Rafael is still in her bed. They had shifted during the night so he’s spooned behind her now, his chest warm and solid against her back and his arm wrapped around her waist. Her alarm hasn’t gone off yet, but she doesn’t want to move enough to check the time and risk waking him up, although she can’t resist the urge to run her hand down his arm and cover his hand with hers.

His breath hitches behind her and she freezes, but he only sighs and loosely tangles their fingers together.

“Sorry,” he says, voice rough with sleep, and she fights a shiver at the feeling of his warm breath against the skin at the base of her neck, “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

“I don’t mind,” she responds, biting her lip as she more securely intertwines their fingers.

This isn’t the first time he’s fallen asleep in her bed-- occasionally he’d drift off while he was reading and she’d wake up in the middle of the night to find him still sitting up against the headboard or curled up on the other side of the bed--, but he’s never still been there in the morning, and they’ve certainly never spent the night so close before, tangled up in each other.

“Time’s it?” he asks. She’s pretty certain that he’s still half asleep, and she can’t help feeling guilty about enjoying his closeness when she suspects if he was actually awake he’d already be out of the bed and stumbling over more emphatic apologies than the one he’d given. But mumbly, sleepy Rafael is hard enough to resist when he’s in the kitchen or the living room, much less when he’s in her bed.

“It’s early. You can go back to sleep.”

He hums. “‘Bout you?” he asks, and her stomach swoops when his arm tightens around her waist.

“I can stay for a while.”

She’s more of a morning person than he is, and is almost always up before him, but she’s having trouble convincing herself to leave the warmth of the bed at the moment.

Rafael hums again, sounding pleased, and presses a kiss against her shoulder. She settles more firmly back against him and lets herself doze for a few more minutes, trying to ignore the nagging thought that this might be the one and only opportunity to enjoy this sort of closeness with him. Eventually, worried that her alarm will wake him and burst the bubble, she carefully untangles herself from his arms and the blanket, resetting the alarm to let him sleep. He shifts towards the warm spot she’d just left but doesn’t show any other signs of stirring, so she tiptoes around her room collecting what she needs before ducking into the bathroom to shower and get ready for the day.

Olivia forces herself to think about the mountain of paperwork she has waiting in her office to avoid thinking about anything they’d talked about the night before or anything they might talk about tonight. Even the good outcomes that she has occasionally allowed herself to imagine over the past few days feel like too much right now, like she’s only setting herself up to have her heart shattered into even smaller pieces than if she just expects the worst.

She starts the coffee machine, more out of habit and because the smell will help with her headache than because she plans to linger long enough to let it actually brew. Plus she knows Rafael will appreciate it, and after everything she’d put him through last night it seems like the least she can do. As she gathers up the last of her things, the door to her bedroom opens and Rafael emerges, squinting against the light in the living room and trying in vain to flatten down his bedhead. He freezes when he sees her, and they stand there looking at each other in silence for a few seconds.

“Liv,” he says, and then seems to decide against whatever he was planning on saying with a sigh. “I’ll see you after work?”

“Yeah. Unless we catch a case, then I might be late.”

“Right, of course. Have a good day.”

“You too,” she says, and then does her best to leave the apartment without looking like she’s fleeing. They’ve never been this awkward with each other, not even in the beginning when they had still been feeling each other out.

She’d worried that paperwork wouldn’t actually hold her attention like she hoped, but there’s something about the mind numbing repetition in most of it that forces her to really sink into it, and she barely looks up until there’s a knock on her door frame.

“Either somebody snuck you food through the interview room or you skipped lunch,” Fin says, “And since I’m pretty sure it’s not the first one, why don’t you let me take you out?”

“It’s not even…” she says, and then looks at the time for the first time in hours, apparently, because it’s just after two. She pushes her glasses up, rubbing at her eyes. “I’m not really hungry.”

“Well, if you don’t want to use that as an excuse, we can talk about whatever is bothering you right here.”

“I’m fine.”

“Nice try, but you’re not going to fool me. We’ve known each other too long.”

She sighs, but mostly because she knows he’s right. If she asked nicely, he’d let it go, at least for today, but he’s not going to let her get away with any stonewalling. For a few seconds, she really considers asking nicely, but instead she stands with another sigh.

“At least I can get some food out of the deal.”

Fin waits until they’re a couple blocks from the precinct before he asks.

“So, what’s going on with you and Barba?”

Olivia looks over at him, alarmed. “Rafael didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Didn’t think he had. But the fact that you’re jumping to defend him like that makes me even more sure that something’s up. You’ve been acting weird around him for the past few days, and you’re never weird around Barba.”

“Well, he is my husband.”

“Yeah, he is, which is why it’s easy to tell you’ve been doing your best to avoid him. Or at least avoiding being alone with him long enough to actually talk about anything. So, I ask again, what’s up?”

She wonders if he’d buy that it was all just a misunderstanding, either on his part or between Rafael and herself, but she doubts it. They have disagreements, arguments, even the occasional fight, but they don’t have misunderstandings, not really.

“Ellie Porter has a son,” she starts, and everything else spills out after that, not just what has already happened but everything that might. By the time she’s finished, they’ve reached the restaurant and gotten their food, and Fin shakes his head as they find a table.

“That’s a lot.”

She laughs. “Yeah, imagine how Rafael felt when I told him last night.”

“You guys didn’t talk about it before you got married?”

“It was kind of a whirlwind thing. The wedding, I mean, not this, although this is… We were supposed to have the chance to talk and to plan and to know what we both wanted.”

“You think Barba doesn’t want kids, even though he didn’t say no?”

“Rafael has reasons to be apprehensive about fatherhood,” she says, hoping Fin won’t ask her to elaborate. It’s not her story to tell, but while she doesn’t have any concerns about Rafael’s ability to be a good father because of how his own father had treated him, she’s fairly certain it has more than a little to do with his own doubts.

“You guys could have more time, you know?” he says, and a wave of cold sweeps through her. She opens her mouth to respond, but her voice has completely abandoned her; after a few seconds, Fin actually reaches across the table to rest one hand on hers, and she manages a deep breath.

“I kept telling myself it was ridiculous. That it was just everything that has happened this year coming to a head. But every time I looked at Noah-” She bites her lip, realizing suddenly that she’s on the verge of tears. “Every time I look at him, I feel a connection. And I never imagined anything like this would be possible, but now…”

“Now you don’t want to chance a maybe next time with a kid who isn’t him.”

“No. But I just sprung all of this on Rafael, and I made things worse by waiting to tell him, because it made it look like I don’t believe he might want this when that’s not true at all, and because now he has less time to process everything.”

“He could say yes. And if he doesn’t, he said you guys could get a divorce, yeah? That he’d let you off the hook?” There’s a joking tone to his voice, but it still sends another burst of cold through her, worse than the last one.

“I’m not sure that would fix anything,” she says, swiping at the single tear that’s managed to escape, and Fin shifts around the table a little to shield her from the rest of the restaurant’s view.

“Liv, I know how Barba feels about you. He’ll do whatever the hell it takes to make sure you’re happy.”

She swallows against another wave of tears, because Fin  _ doesn’t  _ know how Rafael feels about her. No one does, not really.

“I don’t know what to do, Fin. I don’t want to give either of them up, and now I’m terrified that I’m going to lose both of them. And just when I finally thought I might almost…”

She can’t bring herself to finish the sentence, can’t even find the words to describe what Rafael and Noah mean to her, everything they already are and everything they might be. Fin doesn’t seem to know what to say either, but he scoots a little further around the table so he can wrap his arm around her shoulders, and she lets herself lean against him for a few minutes.

\---------------

“You look like hell.”

He sighs as Rita takes the seat across the table from him. “I didn’t sleep well.”

That’s not entirely true. Honestly, he can’t remember the last time he’d slept as soundly as he had with Olivia in his arms, but then he’d woken up to find her already gone from the bed and everything from the night before had come crashing back down on him pretty quickly. After they’d said their stilted goodbyes, he’d spent a little while in his own room, trying to get back to sleep, but it hadn’t done any good, not with his stomach churning and a migraine building.

He’d managed to head that off, for a little while at least, but he hadn’t had luck getting any actual work done, despite the fact that he’d gone into his office earlier than he normally would have, not on a morning when he wasn’t due in court. It had seemed like a better idea than moping around the apartment, but what he’d mostly done instead was stare at files without reading any of them and trying to wrap his head around the idea of a baby. Of Noah Porter, and of being his father. Of himself and Olivia being parents together.

Rafael had been on the verge of hyperventilating when he’d called Rita, because of everyone on an already short list of people he would feel comfortable talking about this with, she’s the only one who knows the truth about his marriage.

“So what did you screw up badly enough that you needed my help immediately?”

“Liv wants a baby,” he says, wincing at his own ridiculous wording. He opens his mouth to clarify, and then startles back when she leans across the table towards him, a little aggressively in his opinion.

“What the hell, Barba, are the two of you sleeping together now?”

“What? Of course not, why would you even-?”

“Maybe because you’re  _ married _ and you just told me your wife wants a baby. What exactly am I supposed to think?”

“Jesus Christ, Rita, I called you because you know we aren’t. She wants to  _ adopt _ a baby. A little boy,” he says, and explains as much as he knows about Noah Porter, both what Olivia has told him and what he’d found in the only files he’d been able to concentrate on this morning. When he finishes, Rita is giving him a look, and he sighs. “What?”

“I’m just marveling at the corner you’ve managed to back yourself into. So you called me to what? Talk you out of it? Into it?”

He feels the color drain from his face, although he couldn’t say which part of her question had caused it. “I just need someone to talk to, and it’s not like I can talk to Liv about it until I at least have some idea what I want.”

“Hmm, well, I think that’s mostly bullshit, but I know how you get and my next meeting isn’t until one. So talk.”

Rafael sighs, but it isn’t like he hadn’t expected the straightforwardness. It was part of the reason he’d called her in the first place. He stares out the windows of the restaurant for a few minutes, trying to organize his thoughts.

“My mom’s always wanted grandkids. Thankfully she’s never dropped any hints, or worse, in front of Liv, but I’m sure she’s wanted to since the wedding. She certainly hasn’t been subtle enough with me that I’m unaware of how overjoyed she’d be about this. And Liv…” He trails off, thinking about the edge of hope in her voice that she hadn’t been able to hide last night, the way she’d pressed her face against his chest as she tried to stop shaking. “If I can do this for her, if it means she gets to have this… She shouldn’t lose this just because I don’t know what I want. Maybe it’s enough to want her to be happy. To have what she wants.”

“Alright, I don’t actually think I need to explain this to you, but I’m going to because you’re in a weird place right now,” she says, rubbing at her forehead, “You can’t adopt a kid because you think it will make other people happy. All that will end up doing is making everyone involved miserable, especially the kid, and that’s not fair to anyone, including you. You have to do this because  _ you _ want to.”

“Of course I know that, I just don’t know what to do about it. What the hell do I know about being a father, except to do the opposite of everything my own father did? Liv deserves an actual partner in this, not someone so pararlyzed by just the thought of a kid that I can’t make a decision one way or the other.”

“Maybe that’s the problem.”

“Yes, I’m definitely the problem here.”

“No, I mean the fact that you’re still stuck on a hypothetical, probably because this seems to be happening pretty fast. But this isn’t about any kid who might come along, this is about one baby, right?”

“Yeah. Noah.”

“Ok, so you need to stop asking yourself if you’re ready to be a father or if you want to be one at all and just figure out whether or not you want to be  _ this kid’s dad _ . Have you met him?” Rafael shakes his head, trying to remember if he’s even seen a picture of him. He’d talked to one of the older girls, in case they had gone to trial and she had needed to testify, but obviously that hadn’t been a concern with Noah. “Your next step should probably be to do that. It’ll make this all feel like it’s about you and him and Olivia, instead of a bunch of maybes. You’re a potential foster parent, it shouldn’t be too hard to call his case worker and set up a meeting. If they hand him over and all you feel is terrified, then at least you’ll be able to give Liv an answer. But maybe actually holding him will mean you can stop worrying about the million other things that are competing to scare the shit out of you right now and really see yourself as his dad. Which is the one I’d put my money on, by the way, if I was betting.”

“You think the real thing will be less terrifying than the hypothetical?”

“Do I think one probably pretty cute baby will be less terrifying than every single nightmare scenario your brain has ever come up with? Yes, significantly.” She picks up the menu the waiter had left for her. “Now come on, you can buy me lunch for dragging me out of my office.”

He picks up his own menu but doesn’t open it.

“I told Liv that we could get a divorce, if it meant she could still adopt him,” he says, wondering how exactly he’ll ever be able to go through with it when just talking about it makes him vaguely nauseous.

Rita doesn’t bother looking up from her menu. “Of course you did, you’re exactly that stupid.”

He gives her a look that of course she doesn’t actually see. “She didn’t think it would help. That it might just make things worse.”

“Of course she did, she’s  _ not  _ that stupid. I’m sure there were other things she wanted to say, but you’ve got enough going on right now.” This time he holds his glare until she actually looks up, and she sighs, finally setting her menu aside. The look she fixes him with in return is somehow both nerve wracking and reassuring at the same time. “Listen, you think your childhood fucked up all your instincts when it comes to fatherhood, and so you’re overthinking this in trying to do the right thing. But I promise you, Rafael, your instincts for doing the right thing are just fine.”

“Thank you,” he says, once he feels like he can trust his voice again.

“Sure. And if your answer turns out to be no, we’ll figure it out. I’ll find some way to make it so you guys got divorced two years ago if it means Liv gets the kid.”

\---------------

Rafael tries to focus on Rita’s reassurances as he waits at the bottom of the stairs, reminding himself that pacing probably isn’t a very good look. It had only taken him two phone calls to set up the meeting once he’d tracked down the name of the social worker in charge of Noah’s case, and he’d had Carmen clear several hours of his afternoon once he had a time set.

“Here we are, Mr. Barba,” says the woman who had greeted him when he’d arrived, and he’d feel bad about not remembering her name except he can’t concentrate on anything but the little boy in her arms.

Noah is looking at him with big eyes, or at least looking towards him, and Rafael is pretty sure that Rita was wrong, because there can’t be anything more terrifying than this. Forcing himself to take deep breaths, he lets the social worker pass Noah over to him.

“Thank you,” he says, hoping that his nervousness doesn’t come through in his voice.

“Of course. You’re welcome to sit, and let us know if you need anything,” she replies, with a smile that makes it pretty clear he was hoping in vain.

Sitting down helps a little bit, and Noah seems content on his lap, playing with one side of his open jacket, but Rafael isn’t really sure what he’s supposed to do now. He reaches down and pulls Noah’s hand away from one of his buttons, smiling when he grabs his finger instead.

“Hey, buddy,” he says, bouncing his hand a little to test his grip, “I know a friend of yours. She’s pretty great, right? And she’d be a great mom, I know she would be. She loves you so much already.” His throat is tight, and he glances around the room, trying to hold on to his composure. “I just wish…”

Wishes he’d had more time to figure this out, to try and get himself to something resembling solid ground. Wishes he’d been brave enough at any point in the last six months to tell Olivia how he really feels. Wishes more than anything that the shadow of his father was not even now looming over his shoulder, whispering in his ear all the ways he could fail at this, with a long line of memories to support his argument. And Rafael could never do the things his father had done, feels sick just thinking about it, but despite what he’d told Rita, he knows that simply doing the opposite of everything his own father had done isn’t enough. Just fighting his way back to neutral isn’t good enough, not for him, and certainly not for Olivia and Noah.

He’s pulled out of his musings by the soft, tiny sound of Noah yawning, and he feels some of the tension in his chest ease at the sight.

“Tired, niño?” he says, lifting him so that he can lay against his chest, and Noah yawns again, stretching his entire small body before settling with his head over Rafael’s heart. Rafael rubs his back slowly, feeling himself relax a little more. Maybe Rita hadn’t been entirely wrong.

“That wasn’t too bad. Think you could promise to only have problems that are that easy to solve for the next eighteen years or so? Because I really don’t know what I’m doing, and you and Liv both deserve someone who isn’t just fumbling through all of this, in more ways than one. I don’t even know where to start.”

Noah, of course, doesn’t react to any of that at all. His nose scrunches up when Rafael brushes his hair away from his forehead, but he doesn’t open his eyes and after a few seconds his face relaxes again, one of his hands gripping Rafael’s jacket. He’s fallen asleep without a thought, the moment he’d had a place to rest his head, and nothing Rafael was worrying about had ever occurred to him.

Noah doesn’t know anything about his father, or about how scared he is of letting Olivia down, of letting his own fear ruin everything. How terrified he is that even his best effort at parenting would fall short enough to wreck a kid’s life. This kid’s life, who has already been through so much and lost so much and deserves a mother like Olivia in his life.

Noah doesn’t know any of that. He just knows that he’s warm and solid and here, right in this moment when he needs somewhere to rest his head.

And that’s not enough either, just being present, not on the whole, and Rafael knows from experience that having a father is not inherently better than not having one. But maybe what it is is the start he’s been blindly groping for, a place to build from with Olivia by his side, a place that means they can give Noah a family that isn’t just present but that makes sure he feels loved and protected.

Rafael shifts so he can rest his nose against Noah’s head, inhales the soft, warm smell of him. He needs to talk to Olivia. Really talk this time, without all the leaving things unsaid and talking around the central point. But this isn’t something they should discuss at work, and she won’t be done for hours yet.

He has time, to sit in this moment, to imagine the sort of start it could be and the things that might be possible after that start, and he settles more comfortably into his chair, still rubbing Noah’s back as he sleeps.

\-----------

Rafael has been quiet since she got home, and he’s been picking at his food for the past fifteen minutes. She had expected it, but that doesn’t make the instinct to let him off the hook, to tell him whatever it took to get that look off his face, any easier to resist. He deserves the chance to sort through his own feelings and make his own decisions though, without any more influence on her part. Spending a good portion of last night sobbing into his chest was already too much.

So she updates him on their progress in their current cases and contents herself with his one sentence answers until finally he stands abruptly, pushing his plate away and running both of his hands through his hair. Olivia pushes her own plate away and stands herself, feeling strangely vulnerable still seated as he paces away from the table.

“Rafa-” she starts, but he shakes his head, and she watches his shoulders rise and fall as he takes several deep breaths before he turns to look at her.

“I need to ask you something, and I need you to be honest with me.” Olivia can tell how hard he’s working at keeping his voice steady. “I need you to tell me the truth, not what you think I want to hear.”

“Of course.”

He takes several steps back towards her, staring at a spot over her shoulder.

“Do you really think I’ll be a good father?”

“Oh, Rafa,” she says, unable to resist crossing the remaining distance between them, lifting her hand to cup his cheek and encourage him to meet her eyes. His own eyes are bright and she can feel the tension in his jaw, but he doesn’t look away. “Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”

“You know about my father.”

“I know about  _ you _ . That’s what’s important, that’s what I care about. That’s  _ who _ I care about.” His gaze flicks away for a moment and then back to hers. “Besides, you know about my father. And my mother, for that matter. In fact, between the two of us, you actually have the advantage in functional parental figures. Does what you know about my parents make you doubt my ability to be a good mother?”

“Of course not,” he says, his voice tight, “It’s never been you I’ve worried about, Liv. Not for one second.” He exhales shakily. “I’m terrified I’ll be awful at this, and I really don’t want to be. You and Noah both deserve someone who isn’t awful at this.”

“We have that someone.”

“You can’t know that.”

“But I can believe it, and I do.”

She considers dropping her hand from where it’s still cradling his face, but she can’t bear to break the connection between them, only just manages to hold in a sigh when he brings his own hand up to cover hers.

“I went to visit him today.”

“I know. Jackson emailed me,” she adds in response to his questioning look. She’d felt almost unbearably touched by the fact that he’d sought Noah out on his own, and then had been angry with herself for the flare of hope that had lit in her chest at the thought. Meeting Noah was just the rational thing for him to do, and didn’t need to have any meaning beyond that.

Except that the look of uncertainty and fear on Rafael’s face has, at least temporarily, been replaced by a soft smile.

“I can see how you got so attached.”

Olivia can’t help her own smile. “Yeah, he’s pretty great.”

“He is.” He takes another deep breath, squeezing her hand, and she can see him studying her face. Whatever he’s looking for, he must find something, because she can see his resolve come together in his eyes. “Liv, I think we should do it.”

His voice is soft but steady, and she swallows against the way her heart leaps at his words.

“Rafael,” she starts, mildly horrified to realize there are tears in her eyes, but he shakes his head before she can say anything more.

“I’ve thought about this. Trust me, I’ve barely thought about a single other thing all day. And I do want to do this because I know it will make you happy, and I do want to do it because it means that Noah can have a home, but it’s for me too. I want to be for him what far too few adults were for you and me when we were growing up, and I don’t want my father- I don’t want his memory to stop me from having the things I want. The family I want.”

Olivia steps forward, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her face against his shoulder. He wraps his own arms around her waist, and she can feel him shaking slightly, which only makes her hold onto him even tighter. She wants to tell him thank you, but she doesn’t want him to think that she believes he’s only doing this for her and not because it’s what he wants.

“He’s yours, Liv,” Rafael says, pressing a kiss against the side of her head, “Anyone who’s heard you talk about him knows that. And I think he’s mine too.”

She pulls back to look at him, and he lifts one hand so he can brush a tear off of her cheek with his thumb. For a moment, she thinks about kissing him, something she could write off as a celebratory impulse indulged in the heat of the moment if he questioned it later, but she gets a grip on herself quickly. He deserves more than that, and the last thing they needed right now is more complications.

“I suppose there are some phone calls I need to make then.”

“Right. And I need to Google how to baby proof an apartment in a weekend. Also we probably need to buy some things,” he says, running his hand through his hair again as he looks around them, “A lot of things, actually. I think babies need a lot of stuff.”

“Yeah, we should get started on those things,” she says, but instead of reaching for her phone, she steps in close to him again, and he wraps his arms around her waist once more. She smiles against his shoulder, reveling in the moment and his closeness.

\------------

They’re holding hands.

Olivia doesn’t know which one of them had actually reached out, or even how long they’ve been doing it. But the feeling of his palm against hers and their fingers intertwined is comforting, and she doesn’t want to mention it and risk him letting go.

Rafael is doing his best not to look nervous, she can tell, scrolling through his phone, but he’s been bouncing one of his knees since they’d sat down to wait for Judge Linden to call them into her office. She shifts so that their joined hands rest on his thigh, and he smiles at her sheepishly.

“Sorry,” he says, clicking his phone off and sliding it into his pocket.

“It’s alright. I’m nervous too.”

“This is the easy part, right? Or the easier part, at least, in between the hard parts.”

They’d spent almost the entirety of the past few days getting approved to be Noah’s foster parents and working to make sure the apartment and their lives were ready for his arrival. Their home inspection had been yesterday, and they’ve filled out an entire mountain of paperwork, so now there’s just a few more signatures to make Judge Linden’s approval of the foster-to-adopt arrangement official. And then Ms. Jackson is planning on meeting them here to hand Noah over.

She smiles, squeezing his hand. “There’ll probably be some easier parts in the future.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m pretty sure that sometimes he’ll be asleep.”

He laughs, shoulders relaxing. His knee is still bouncing, but less noticeably so, and there’s something almost soothing about the rhythm of it. She’s been watching him like a hawk these past few days, waiting for him to seem entirely overwhelmed or regretful about his decision, but there hasn’t been anything like that. He’s been nervous, sure, even anxious, but so has she, with everything they’ve needed to get done and the scale of what they’re doing, and she doesn’t think either of them have been sleeping particularly well.

But part of that for her is excitement too, and more than once she’s caught him staring at the various pieces of baby paraphernalia with a stunned smile on his face, like he can’t quite believe this is his life but he’s not upset about it. It’s a good look for him.

“Mr. and Mrs. Benson? The judge will see you now,” Linden’s assistant says, and Rafael stands before Olivia can correct her.

“Thank you.”

She rolls her eyes at him, but joins him on her feet without dropping his hand. He’s never once said anything to anyone who has referred to him as  _ Benson _ , even though she’s fairly certain he’s corrected every single person who has ever called her  _ Barba. _ She tries not to think about it too much because it makes her feel uncomfortably flushed for reasons she doesn’t want to examine too closely, but it’s a pattern that’s impossible to miss.

Langen is waiting for them in the judge’s chambers, flipping through paperwork, but he looks up with a smile when they enter.

“This all looks to be in order,” he says, setting the papers at the two chairs in front of Linden’s desk, “And Ms. Jackson just texted me that they’ll be here in a few minutes.”

“We should get this finished then, I’m sure the two of you have plenty to do today,” Linden says as they take their seats and accept the pens Langen holds out to them, “Once you’ve signed these papers, Noah Porter will officially be in your custody as a foster child for one year, at which time you’ll be able to adopt him as long as no biological relatives have been found or come forward who wish to take him in. Do you both understand?”

“Yes, you honor,” Rafael says, and Olivia nods, throat too tight to speak. She hopes she doesn’t look nearly as close to tears as she feels. Rafael squeezes her hand once before letting go so she can sign her portion of the papers.

They’re just finishing up with the last few blanks when there’s a knock on the door, and Linden’s assistant sticks her head in.

“Ma’am, Ms. Jackson and Ms. Taylor are here with Noah. Did you want me to bring them in?”

“Commendable timing, I think we can actually come out to them,” she says, looking over the completed forms Rafael has just handed her.

Olivia glances at him from the corner of her eye as they stand, wanting to take his hand again, but before she can reach out, his eyes widen slightly as he looks over her shoulder, and she turns to find Ms. Jackson in the doorway, holding Noah. Her attention zeroes in on him, and she moves over to take him from her, the now familiar feeling of knowing that he was hers vibrating in her chest. And now it was official, now everyone else knows it too.

And they know he’s Rafael’s as well, she thinks, as he comes to stand next to her and Ms. Jackson hands Noah over. She lifts a hand to hold his head gently to her chest, and she feels Rafael rest his own hand against the middle of her back as she rocks back and forth a little.

“Oh, he looks so healthy.”

“We do our job, Sergeant,” Ms. Jackson says.

“Thank you,” Rafael says, his voice tight, and she turns to him with a grin, which he returns, “Home?”

“Home.”

The rest of the day is mostly a whirlwind. Being prepared to bring a baby home is apparently only step one, and they spend a lot of time sorting through and rearranging the things they had bought, in between turns holding or feeding Noah. They have plenty of visitors as well; Amaro stops by, and Cragen. Lucia stops by later in the evening and spends nearly an hour cooing over Noah and helping them set things up. Rafael spends a lot of that time rolling his eyes at his mother, but her enthusiasm is catching and Olivia can tell that even he can’t fully resist getting caught up in it.

All of it adds up to a very long day though, and by the time she’s brushing her teeth, she’s having trouble keeping her eyes open.

“How come no one ever talks about how exhausting parenting is?” Rafael says, and Olivia grins at him from the bathroom doorway. He’s stretched out on his side on her bed, on top of the covers, staring at Noah. The baby is asleep, pillows she’d brought in from the couch on either side of him to keep him from rolling over.

“You would think someone would have mentioned it at some point,” she says, making her way over to the other side of the bed.

She knows she should put Noah in his crib, that he’d be more comfortable there and that letting him sleep in her bed is a bad habit to get into even this early. But she likes being able to reach out and touch him, to remind herself that this is real. Like Rafael said, today has been exhausting, and everything has taken on a dreamlike haze as she tries to keep herself from drifting off: the only light in the room coming from the lamp on the other side of the bed, the soft sounds of Noah’s even breathing, Rafael in her bed.

“We should probably get to sleep soon,” he says through a yawn, nodding at Noah, “I’m sure he’ll be up more than once tonight. I can move the crib into my room, if you want.”

They’d specifically gotten a crib with wheels that they could move between their rooms depending on their schedules, which is currently tucked into the corner of hers. They’ve got baby monitors too, but this had seemed like the best system for their situation that would let them both get a little more sleep than they otherwise might have.

As comfortable as she is, she’s not quite ready to fall asleep yet.

“He’s okay in here. And we don’t need to move him yet, I’m not quite ready for bed.”

Rafael’s laugh is cut off by another yawn. “No? You sure about that?” he asks, when Olivia has to smother a yawn of her own.

“I just want to lay here with you guys for a little while. A few more minutes.”

He’s still smiling at her, but he shifts to settle more comfortably against the mattress, eyes on Noah, and she lets herself stare at the both of them unashamedly.

The next thing she’s aware of is Noah, making the soft sounds that aren’t quite cries yet, and she shakes herself awake, pushing up onto one elbow.

“Hey, sweet boy, you’re alright. Are you hungry?” she asks, reaching out to rub his stomach, and he calms almost immediately, eyes already slipping closed again. “There you go.”

She keeps her voice soft, trying not to move too much, because Rafael is still curled up on the other side of Noah, and she worries if he wakes up he’ll go back to his own bed. Excuses to spend the night next to him are hard to come by, and she doesn’t want to waste this one she’s stumbled upon. The lamp behind him is still on, but he doesn’t seem bothered by the light, his face soft and relaxed in sleep. Once she’s sure Noah has drifted off again, she turns, intending to turn the light off, but her feet haven’t even touched the floor when she hears a sigh behind her.

Rafael has one eye open, and he stretches as she watches, wrapping his arms underneath his pillow. “Is he hungry? I said I’d get up with him.”

“No, no, just a little fussy, I think,” she replies, shifting to lie back down in the hope that it will keep him from getting up and she rests her hand on Noah’s chest again. “He’s already asleep again.”

“Good,” he says, shifting, and she bites her lip against the urge to tell him he can stay, but he only moves enough to shut off the lamp beside him. He settles back into his previous spot, and after a few seconds, she feels his hand settle over hers in the dark. “If he does wake up, I’ll take the shift tonight. Night, Liv.”

The soft, slow swipe of his thumb against her skin is soothing, and she curls around Noah a little more, until her toes press against Rafael’s shins.

“Night, Rafa.”

\---------------

“He having trouble sleeping?”

“Hungry,” she says, nodding at the now empty bottle on the table in front of her as she rubs Noah’s back, “That the same reason you’re up?”

“Parental instincts must finally be kicking in,” he replies, sitting next to her on the couch and laughing when she gives him a look, “No, I forgot to turn the baby monitor off and then couldn’t get back to sleep.”

Olivia grimaces. “Sorry.”

“There are worse things than getting to spend a little more time with you guys.”

“You’re only saying that because he hasn’t spit up on you recently.”

“Maybe he’s outgrown it finally.”

“Now you’re just trying to jinx us, which means you have to hold him,” Olivia says, and Rafael laughs again as she hands Noah over. She stands, grabbing the empty bottle from the table, “You want a glass of water or anything?”

He shakes his head, rubbing Noah’s back as he situates him on his chest, letting the sounds of Olivia puttering around in the kitchen lull him enough that he actually startles a bit when she sits down next to him again. For a moment, he thinks she’s laughing at him, but her smile is soft as she looks at them, and he glances down to see that Noah has fallen asleep.

“He seems to think your parental instincts are just fine.”

“Since he’s a baby, I’m not sure his opinion counts.”

“On the contrary, I actually think that means his opinion is the only one that really matters. Besides mine, of course.”

Rafael smiles. “Your opinion always counts, Liv.”

Her face softens even further, and she surprises him by reaching up to cup his cheek in her palm.

“If things had been different, if we hadn’t been married and I would have had to take him in on my own, I still would have done it, absolutely. But it’s nice to have someone here with me, and I’m glad it’s you, Rafa. Even if you feel like you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“There’s no one else I’d rather be here with,” Rafael says, not letting himself think about whether it’s too much.

Olivia doesn’t reply, but she shifts to rest her head against his shoulder, and he wraps his arm around her. They sit in silence for a while, Rafael listening to her breathing slow to match Noah’s. Feeling brave, he turns his head to press a kiss against her hair.

“If we fall asleep out here, we’ll pay the price.”

“Come to bed then.”

He forces himself to keep his own breathing steady, even as he feels his heartbeat trip over itself. It isn’t a big deal unless he makes it one, he tells himself, especially since it’s not like they haven’t slept in the same bed with Noah before.

“You want to grab the pillows, and I’ll take him?”

Olivia hums in agreement, and when she sits up and turns away to gather them, he exhales. Glancing down at Noah, he fights a stupid and irrational moment of jealousy over his total lack of concern over any sleeping arrangements at all, and decides that just for the night he’ll take a page out of his book instead.

\----------------

“Oh, Rafi, he’s adorable! Look at him!”

“Yes, Ma, I’ve seen him,” Rafael says, but Olivia can tell he’s pleased with how happy his mother is, and she thinks Lucia can tell as well, even with most of her attention concentrated on Noah. He turns to his grandmother, sitting next to him on the couch and smiling at her daughter. “Were you like this with me?”

“I’m sure I was worse,” Catalina says, “In my defense, you were also a very cute baby.”

“He was. Olivia, I’ll have to show you some pictures before you leave. Very handsome, just like mi nieto here. Like father, like son, sí?”

Rafael’s face does the soft and complicated thing it does every time someone refers to him as Noah’s father, hopeful and terrified and proud, and Olivia’s heart thumps at the sight, feeling absolutely full to bursting at watching the collected Barba family with Noah.

“I’d love to see them,” she says, and Rafael shoots her a half-hearted glare. She just grins back at him, and after a few seconds his own expression melts into a smile, like he can’t hold back his own amusement at his mother’s teasing.

“Ma, do you need help with the food? Or did you not plan on feeding us at this lunch you invited us to?”

“Oh, hush.” She turns to Olivia, standing so she can hand Noah over to Rafael. “Will you help me finish things off, dear? Or else my poor son might starve to death.”

“Of course.”

This gets her another glare from Rafael, but he’s quickly distracted by Noah. She follows Lucia into the kitchen, and she points at the massive pot on the stove.

“Stir that for me, will you? There’s a spoon there. I just need to add a few more things and it’ll be ready. And this’ll give us a chance to talk. I wanted to thank you.”

“Thank me?”

She sets down the knife she’d been using and turns from the cutting board, and Olivia follows her gaze out to where Rafael is gently bouncing Noah on his knee, Catalina smiling at the both of them.

“I was afraid he’d talk himself out of it, having a family. He’s very good at going after the things he wants when he decides to, but he’s also very good at talking himself into believing he doesn’t deserve things he wants. I was worried he would do that with you, and with this. I’m very glad I was wrong. I’m grateful that he gets to have these things, and especially that he gets to have them with you.”

Olivia feels simultaneously touched and guilty, almost overwhelmed by the conflicting emotions. Her chest aches at the memory of Rafael’s hesitance in asking if he could invite his mother and grandmother to the wedding, and she knows he’s never explained to either of them the actual circumstances of the marriage. She wants to somehow reassure her without giving them away, to convince Lucia that while their marriage might not be what she ever imagined for her son, it’s real in so many of the ways that really matter.

She wants more than anything to make sure she knows that she loves Rafael, even if she’s too afraid of losing him to tell him.

“I’m grateful to get to have these things with him. Noah and I are lucky to have him.”

Lucia smiles softly, reaching out to squeeze her elbow before turning back to chopping.

“The fact that you might just have convinced him of that is all the more reason to thank you. Remind me after dinner to show you those pictures, you’ve more than earned them. And it will teach Rafi to complain about when he’s getting lunch.”

She raises her voice on the last bit, and Rafael turns towards the kitchen at the mention of his name. His brow is furrowed, but once again, the moodiness disappears from his face as she smiles at him, and she thinks she could get used to that.

She thinks she could get used to all of this.

\-------------------

_ OB: The squad bullied me into going home. _

_ RB: That’s weird, given how you looked this morning. _

She’d responded to his sarcasm with a frowny face, and then texted him to let him know that she’d made it home safely, but he hasn’t heard from her since then. Rafael hopes this is because she’s actually sleeping, given how terrible she’d looked this morning, but he’s been worried for most of the afternoon anyway, despite the fact that he knows she’s been taking care of herself for most of her life. He had called Lucy earlier before Olivia had gotten back to the apartment, who had gladly taken Noah to her apartment to minimize both of their chances of getting sick, but he’s picked him up now and is headed home.

And if he’s a little earlier than he usually is, he figures that a sick wife is as good of an excuse as there is.

“Liv?” he calls softly, in case she is asleep, and leaves his briefcase by the door, shifting Noah to hold him with both arms, “Let’s go find your mom, huh?”

Her keys are on the breakfast bar beside her purse, but she’s not on the couch like he thought she might be. He knocks gently on the door to her bedroom, and then freezes when he pushes it open to find her bed empty, her comforter missing, and all the lights off.

“Okay,” he says, forcing himself to take even breaths and looking at Noah, who is still working on the bottle he’d given him in the car, “We’re not going to freak out yet. She’s here somewhere.”

He tries not to think about William Lewis when he finds the guest bathroom empty, and pauses at the door to his own room. There’s no reason for her to be in there instead of her own bed or on the couch, but he needs to remain calm no matter what the answer is, because either a sick Olivia had for some reason decided to sleep in his bed or…

Rafael pushes open the door and sighs in relief, dropping his face down against the top of Noah’s head. Olivia is curled up on the bed, tangled in both his comforter and the one from her bed, head on one of his pillows with the other hugged against her chest. He presses a kiss against Noah’s hair, who has now finished his bottle and is starting to doze off against Rafael’s shoulder.

“Let’s get you settled down for a nap, mijo, and then I’ll look after Mom.”

His crib is in Olivia’s room, and Noah settles down with no fuss. Rafael ducks back into his room to gather clothes to change out of his suit, fumbling a little in the dimness of the room because he doesn’t want to disturb Olivia yet by turning on any of the lights, stealing occasional glances at the shape of her under the covers.

It absolutely doesn’t mean anything, he tells himself firmly as he changes in the bathroom. She had been pale and a little spacey already before she’d left that morning, and he’s sure after a few hours at work she’d been in even worse shape, especially if her co-workers had been so adamant about her going home. She was stubborn too, and he wouldn’t be surprised if she had tried to tough it out even once she’d gotten home, tried to make herself lunch or work on paperwork. Maybe his room had been more convenient for whatever reason, or maybe there was some reason that she hadn’t wanted to sleep in her own room.

After he checks on Noah and hangs his suit up, he sits at the side of his bed next to her, brushing some of her hair away from her overwarm forehead.

“Liv?” he whispers, and her eyelids flutter open. She looks confused for a few seconds, and then shifts towards his palm like she’s chasing his warmth, “How are you, honey?”

She groans, shaking her head and pulling both of the comforters up to her chin.

“That bad? You do feel pretty warm, have you taken anything?”

“Tylenol, right when I got home. Don’t know how long ago that was.”

“Okay,” he says, trying to remember when she’d texted him, “I’ll go grab you something.”

“Wait,” she says, snaking an arm out from under the covers to catch his arm before he can stand, pulling his hand up to press it flat against her cheek, “Sorry, I can’t seem to get warm, and you’re… It’s nice.”

“I could…” he starts, and then pushes through the ringing warning in his brain that this is a bad idea, “I could lie down with you for a bit. If you would think it would help.”

She looks up at him, and he’s alarmed to see tears in her eyes.

“I don’t want you to get sick.”

“We work together and live together. I don’t think this will really have any effect on whether or not I catch whatever this is. I just want you to feel better.”

Olivia nods almost immediately, and he brushes her hair away from her face again.

“Okay, let me check on Noah and get you more Tylenol. I’ll be right back.”

When he returns, Olivia’s eyes are closed, and he wonders if it wouldn’t just be better to leave the pills on the table next to his bed and let her sleep. She pushes herself up to sitting as he approaches though, and he can see how badly she’s shivering.

“Here, take these and I’ll-” he says, nodding over at the other side of the bed, and she nods, clenching her hands for a few seconds to steady them enough to take the Tylenol from him. He rounds the bed, sorting through the various blankets she’s piled up until he can slide in next to her. As soon as she’s emptied the water, she curls up beside him, and he shifts so that he can wrap one arm over her waist.

“This okay?” Olivia nods. “I always knew kids were germ magnets, this is probably the price we’re paying for taking Noah in.”

“Is Noah sick?” She sounds alarmed and without thinking, he leans forward and presses what he hopes is a comforting kiss against the back of her neck.

“No, honey, he’s fine. I was just joking. You should sleep, you’ll feel better.”

She nods again, and after a few minutes, her shivering eases as she drifts off. He dozes for a while, although it’s too hot under the pile of blankets with a feverish Olivia to actually sleep; he’s not normally very good at doing nothing, but this isn’t so bad, lying here with her and helping her feel better. Eventually he can hear Noah fussing over the baby monitor as he wakes up from his nap, and he carefully untangles himself, making sure she’s still covered by all of her blankets before he leaves.

He plays with Noah for a bit, and then feeds him while he fixes dinner for himself and soup for Olivia. He’s not sure if she’ll actually want to eat, but he figures it’ll be harder for her to put him off if he already has something prepared and she can’t argue that he doesn’t need to go out of his way just for her.

Noah is fussier about going down for the night than he usually is, which makes sense given the disruption to his schedule, but eventually Rafael gets him to sleep, leaving the crib in Olivia’s room for now. He doesn’t know exactly where he himself plans to sleep tonight, but that’s a problem he can solve later.

Olivia is still asleep when he brings her soup into her, and she groans when he gently shakes her awake, although he can feel that her fever has at least started to drop.

“I know, Liv, but you should eat something. You didn’t have breakfast, and I doubt you fixed anything for lunch if you were feeling even worse than you were when I got home.”

“Where’s Noah?” she asks, pushing the covers away from her face.

“Asleep in your room.”

She freezes, halfway to sitting up, glancing around the room, and he realizes that she, sick and mostly asleep, hadn’t really comprehended that she wasn’t in her own room until just now.

“I-Sorry. I don’t know why I...”

“It’s fine. I don’t mind.”

“I felt bad and I just wanted-” She cuts herself off, and he doesn’t think the flush in her cheeks is from the fever. “Sorry, I’ll g-”

It’s his turn to cut her off, stopping her from pulling the covers away from her legs with his hand over hers.

“Liv, it’s really not a big deal in the slightest _. _ You’re sick, you don’t need to move. Just eat your soup, okay?” he says, laughing in hopes of breaking some of the sudden tension in the room. He desperately wants to ask her what it was she wanted, but he’s not about to take advantage of the fact that she’s sick and not entirely herself yet. “I’ve got some work I need to get done, but let me know if you need anything.”

His work is mostly loose ends that need tying up since he’d left work early, and it doesn’t really take that much time for him to finish. In fact, he ends up spending at least as much time watching the slightly ajar door to his room, expecting Olivia to make a break for it back to her own room. She never emerges though, and when he returns to the room, she’s once again curled up under his comforter, although she’s pushed the rest of the blankets to the foot of the bed.

“You should bring Noah in here,” she says, shifting to sit up a little bit.

“I know it’s your night, but I don’t mind. Plus he’s not waking up in the middle of the night as much, and I don’t work tomorrow anyway.”

“No, I mean… I don’t want to kick you out of your bed.”

“Oh.” He’s not quite sure what to say. She obviously feels better than she had earlier, color returning to her face and her chills easing, but he’s sure she doesn’t feel one hundred percent, or he’s certain he never would have been able to convince her to stay instead of going back to her own room in the first place. But the bed is big enough for the two of them to sleep comfortably without it being awkward if he doesn’t make it so right now.

“Do you need anything before I go get him?” She shakes her head, holding out her now empty soup bowl for him to take. “I’ll be right back then.”

Noah thankfully doesn’t stir as he moves the crib between rooms, and Olivia smiles as he pushes it into its normal spot against the wall.

“Seems like you boys managed just fine without me.”

“We did alright,” he says, as she shuts off the lamp next to the bed. It’s early for him to sleep, but he can feel the day of work and worry starting to catch up to him. “But I definitely prefer when you’re on your feet and with us.”

He slides into bed next to her, kicking the pile of blankets away from their feet, and she laughs, reaching out to rest a hand over his.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For looking out for him. For both of us, really.”

“That was the deal, right?”

Her thumb traces the curve of his ring, and he fights a shiver.

“Yeah,” she says, as much a sigh as a word and still somehow wistful enough to tug at something in his chest.

_ I love you _ , he thinks, and it’s certainly not the first time he’s wanted to say it, but now it feels just about ready to claw its way out of his throat.  _ I love you, and I love Noah, and it’s not just a deal, or a pact, or an agreement, whatever you want to call it, not to me. It’s how I want to spend the rest of my life.  _ But he can’t say any of that, certainly not now, in this moment where she’s demonstrating so much trust in him.

Instead, he shifts to press his lips against her forehead, and when she presses her face into his chest, he carefully slips one arm around her waist.

“It’s a pretty good deal.”

Rafael thinks he can feel her smile against his t-shirt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've reached this point, congratulations, that was a ton of words you just read! Six tons even! If you've reached this point and you're thinking "Hey, Z, you didn't really dig deep into [x] and you just kind of glossed over [y],' the good news for you is that there is more coming and chapters 2 and 3 will be even longer than this probably. Somehow. Which is, of course, the bad news for me. But yeah, there will be a lot more thinking and feeling and pining and dwelling and whatnot.
> 
> I'm not sure when Chapter 2 will be up, because I also want to work on my [redacted] fic, but it'll be along at some point. And if you thought marriage and a baby upped the emotional stakes of this relationship, just wait until I introduce a teenager next chapter, and bring this fic up to perhaps unprecedented levels of pining but technically platonic bedsharing, among other things.


End file.
